'To be on our home roads was brilliant': Ben Swift and Jacob Scott revel in Tour of Britain's Yorkshire return

On a day of incessant drizzle and chill winds more reflective of deepest autumn than late summer, the good people of Yorkshire came out in their thousands to greet the cyclists making up stage three of the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men.

Twenty-four hours after stage two headed up Saltburn Bank and into Redcar, this time it was the turn of South Yorkshire to play host to the country’s premier cycle race for the first time in 17 years.

And how they greeted it, with bunting draped over railings and beaming faces from hundreds of schoolkids on the roadside from Arundel Gate in Sheffield to County Way in Barnsley.

It was a very urban route - a typically challenging one for the riders - that asked them to climb the menacingly named Jawbone Hill out of Oughtibridge and took them through old mining communities in the Dearne Valley and up past Conisbrough Castle.

For two local riders, it was familiar terrain, even if it didn’t yield the results they had hoped.

Holmfirth’s Jacob Scott, riding for Rembe ProCycling Team Sauerland, and Rotherham’s Ben Swift of Ineos Grenadiers, wheeled home in the middle of the pack after differing days on their return to Yorkshire.

“I had a lot of family and friends out there - but I didn’t realise I knew so many people,” quipped the Ineos veteran Swift, whose long cycling journey that would be highlighted by victory in the British road race five years ago, began in North Anston.

“We don’t get to race these roads much, and to actually be really, really local - I think the closest was three miles away from where I grew up - was brilliant.”

Swift, who happily signed autographs and posed for pictures at the team bus after the 166km stage, was part of the breakaway group that animated the race through Rotherham.

“I just wanted to be aggressive, we were aggressive yesterday but it didn’t go quite right, but rather than hanging our heads we wanted to come out fighting,” said Swift, who had company in the breakaway with former race winner and two-time world champion Julian Allaphilippe.

“It was funny with Julian actually, me knowing the roads I could tell him where to ride to stay out of trouble and he was laughing that it must be nice you know your home roads.

“We were on a bit of a hiding to nothing in the break, but at least it made it a hard day and more of a stress for the group.

“You get a day like that every now and again where it’s absolutely flat out, where you’ve done a 100k and everyone is still attacking.”

The pace was too quick for Scott, 29, who is a former King of the Mountains jersey wearer in the Tour of Britain.

“It was rougher than I expected,” Scott told The Yorkshire Post.

“There was a lot of local knowledge for me but that’s the most frustrating, slightly upsetting thing, that I knew all the roads, yet my head was stronger than my legs and they have been for a while.

“That last 40k I knew well, it’s part of my training ride, which makes it all the more frustrating.

"I knew what I’d have done if I could have done it.”

Steve Williams may have taken the accolades by winning the two stages in North and South Yorkshire over the last two days, but it was the county’s continued appreciation of cycling that shone through.